


The Dragon and the Stag

by ariel2me



Series: Drabble/Ficlet Collection [13]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:59:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6889087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Ormund Baratheon/Rhaelle Targaryen drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“The gods will protect him,” Ormund said.

“Like they protected my brother Daeron?”

Rhaelle had no use for prayers, not since the day she was used as coins to pay for her brother Duncan’s folly. But Ormund believed still in the Father’s justice and the Mother’s mercy. _Please, I beg you_ , he implored. _Save him! He is our son, our one and only._  

Steffon’s fever raged and raged. Maester Cressen bled him, purged him, poured various concoctions down his throat, but nothing seemed to work.

“Oh they are _cruel!_ The gods have always been cruel,” Rhaelle cried out.

“Do not say that. Do not give them cause to cast us out of their mercy.”

“Mercy? What mercy? What mercy have they ever shown me?”

 “They gave us Steffon. They gave us our son.” The gods gave them the sacred bond holding their marriage together; the flesh and blood holding up the frail skeleton of their union.

“ _I_ gave you a son. Labored for three days and three nights to bring him into this world. And now the gods seek to rob us of him. Our son. Our _only_ child. The only one we could ever have together.”

The long, arduous birth had done its damage, Cressen and the midwife both concurred at the time. There would be no other babe for Rhaelle, no other children for them.

 _I will trade you_ , Ormund promised the Stranger. _My life for his._ His life for his son, the boy who had been begging to climb onto his father’s back so he could pretend that he was riding a dragon, to play the game they had played countless times before.

“You are too old for this game now,” Ormund had scolded his son, not a fortnight before the fever started consuming Steffon.

“Just one more time. Please, Father?”

“I said no!” How would it look, Ormund thought at the time, for the future Lord of Storm’s End, a boy of seven, not five, not three, to be horse-playing and roughhousing with his father like he was a regular boy with no care in the world?

 _You are not like other boys. You are born to duty and inheritance_. _Never forget that_ , he had told Steffon, on the boy’s seventh nameday.

How foolish it all seemed now. How _futile_. He would play a hundred games with his son, pretend to be a dragon a thousand times over, if only Steffon would rise from his sickbed, if only he would _live_.

 “We are being punished by the gods. No … _I_ am being punished. It is my doing, it is my fault our son could die,” Rhaelle said, near tears.

Alarmed, Ormund closed the distance between them. Hesitantly, slowly, he placed his hand on her shoulder, half-expecting her to recoil from his touch. Instead, she raised her own hand to grasp his.

Their fingers intertwined, he said, “You have not done anything wrong, Rhaelle. Why should you be punished by the gods?”

 _He_ was the one being punished. Punished for being a father who cared more about duty and inheritance than about his son. It was _his_ doing, _his_ fault that their son might not live, he was convinced of that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is not a new drabble. I posted it in a different drabble collection before, but I'm reorganizing things.

**Rhaelle** **Targaryen/Ormund Baratheon + “Love is supposed to dignify us.”**

________________________

_Love is supposed to dignify us, exult us. How can it be love, John, if all it does is make you lonely and corrupt?”_

_(Alice Morgan in Luther 1x01)_

_________________________ _

“Love is supposed to dignify us. How can it be love, when all it does is make liars and betrayers of my brothers and sister?”

“You kept your word and your father’s promise. You, alone, among your siblings. How much joy have you had of that, Rhaelle?”

“How much joy have you had of your father’s vengeance, Ormund?”

“How much joy have you had of our union, my princess?”

“We make our own happiness, my sister told me.”

“Pity she did not tell you that before our wedding.”

“Oh, but she did.  _Run_ , Shaera whispered. _It’s not too late_ , she said.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Where would I have gone? Shaera had her Jaehaerys. I had no one.”

“You had me. You have me still.”  

“I wanted that, once. When I was a foolish girl dreaming of her father’s brave squire. Before Duncan’s great love made a mockery of everything, poisoned what once could have been.”

“You can want it again.”

“And risk another crushing disappointment, another devastation? Love is supposed to dignify us. How can it be love, when all it does is strip us bare of our defenses?”

“How can there be love, unless we’re willing to be stripped to the bone, unless we’re willing to be truly  _known_ , to the other?”

 _Love is supposed to dignify us_ , she thought. How could it be love, when all it did was leave her with the bones and silence of the one who had known her best?


	3. Chapter 3

"Once upon a time," Ormund begins, "a princess lived in a beautiful castle with her sister and her three brothers."

"It's me!" Rhaelle declares. "I'm the princess."

"It might not be you," Ormund teases. "It could be your sister. She's a princess too."

Rhaelle pouts. "You're not my favorite of Father's squires anymore."

"But you said I could be Ser Dunk to your Egg, and we'll travel the whole realm and have great adventures together."

"I've changed my mind. I don't want to shave my head. You can shave your head and wear ugly hats, and I'll be Ser Dunk and protect you from wicked, wicked men."

"I'll have to be your squire, then."

"Why not? You're Father's squire now. How different could it be?"

Ormund smiles. "I don't know about that. You're much more demanding than your father."

"I'll be very considerate," Rhaelle promises. "We could even stop at Storm's End to see your sister's wedding. Not for long, mind you, we'll have too much to do and to see to linger too long in one place."

Ormund laughs. "How very generous. But is that only for my sake? Don't you want to see your brother getting married as well?"

"Duncan won't mind if I don't come." Duncan never speaks of his upcoming wedding. He probably would not mind if no one comes to his wedding. Rhaelle sighs. "I wish we could really go."

"Go where?"

"On our great adventure."

"Perhaps we will, one day."

"No, we won't. I'm not a silly little girl, you know. I'm almost _nine_."

"We'll have other adventures," Ormund promises.

 _But not together_ , Rhaelle thinks. Soon Ormund will be old enough to be knighted, and he'll return home to Storm's End and forget all about his favorite princess. She's just a little girl after all, even if _definitely_ not a silly one. Why would he remember her at all?

 


	4. Chapter 4

Rhaelle wore a crown of flowers on her wedding day.

She smiled when she recited her vows, smiled when she kissed her husband, smiled when she waved to the crowd. She laughed when Ormund reminded her of how she used to ride on his back and pretended that he was a dragon who would carry her across the Sunset Sea, back when she was a little girl and he was her father's squire.

“How brave of you,” Duncan said. “How kind of you, to spare Father and me from feeling guilty. But you need not pretend, Rhaelle. You need not pretend with me. Cry, little sister, if you must. _Rage_ , that you are forced to wed this man to pay for my betrayal.”

She wrenched her hand away from her brother's grasp. “I was not trying to spare _you_ from anything. This is _our_ triumph, our own doing, mine and Ormund's alone, that I am _glad_ to be wed to him. This has _nothing_ to do with you. It absolves _you_ of none of your sins to me, or to others. We will be _happy_ , my husband and I, and it will not be _because_ of what you did, but _despite_ it. We will be happy, and it will all be for our own sake, not for yours, not to spare you from the burden of guilt. ”


	5. Chapter 5

“If the child is a boy -” Ormund began.

“Not Aegon,” Rhaelle quickly said.

“Not Lyonel,” Ormund said. “And certainly not any of the storm kings.”

“Or any of the Targaryen kings,” Rhaelle added. “He must have a name unique to himself, our boy, a name that does not bring to mind an illustrious ancestor whose glorious deeds he would be expected to live up to, or even surpass. An ancestor to whom he would be constantly compared.”

“And be found perpetually wanting, for how could _anyone_ compete with the dead?” Ormund said emphatically. He knew _that_ trap full well, having been named by his lord father after a storm king of old. (“ _Had I named you Arlan after the great King Arlan III Durrandon, my disappointment would have been even greater,”_ Lyonel Baratheon was fond of throwing this in his son's face, whenever father and son disagreed on a matter.)

“A name we choose only because we love the sound of it,” Rhaelle said. “Only because it gives us joy to call our boy by that name.”

“Have you one in mind?”

Rhaelle smiled. “There is a name I have always been fond of. It was the name of a knight who fought for Ser Dunk … for Ser Duncan, when he faced the trial of seven at Ashford. He was the first knight to offer to fight on Ser Duncan's side, my father said.”

“Ser Steffon of the red apple Fossoway. Your father told me the same story, when I was serving as his squire.” King Aegon had also told Ormund of his effort to convince Ormund's own lord father to be one of the knights fighting on Ser Duncan's side, an effort that involved the accidental overturning of wine over Lyonel Baratheon's head. But _that_ story had been told in the days when the king and Lord Lyonel were still fast friends, when it was still a story that would bring forth only laughter and fond memories, not anger, bitterness and sorrow.

“We would not be naming our boy for Steffon Fossoway, of course,” Rhaelle continued. “We would only be borrowing his name, because Steffon rolls off the tongue so delightfully.”

“Steffon. Steffon Baratheon,” Ormund said out loud, trying out the name.


End file.
